4 8 
LEEDS POTTERY. 
This was the most famous pottery in the County, and the 
almost forgotten works there turned out thousands of pieces of the 
highest excellency. There is no doubt that pottery has been 
made at Leeds, or its immediate vicinity from the earliest times. 
Geologically speaking, Leeds is most favourably situated for the 
production of, at least, coarse earthenware, as in several parts of 
the neighbourhood beds of clay are found particularly suitable for 
this purpose, which no doubt have been worked for this class of 
ware from British and Roman periods down to our own time, as 
pointed out by Messrs. Joseph R. and Frank Kidson, in their 
classic work, entitled, “ Historical Notices of the Leeds Old 
Pottery, with a description of its Wares, together with brief 
accounts of contemporary potteries in the immediate vicinity, 
hitherto unnoticed." 
The W 7 ortley bed of clay is eminently adapted for making stone¬ 
ware, and is now extensively used by several firms for fire bricks 
and sanitary ware. Ralph Thoresby, in his Ducatus Leodiensis , 
published in 1715, mentions that in his day it was employed for 
making tobacco pipes. The village of Potters Newton evidently 
takes its name from a colony of potters settled there in early times. 
Of the exact date of the first establishment of the Leeds Pottery 
nothing definite is known, it is however certain that it was in 
existence about the middle of the 18th century, and at that time 
wares of no ordinary degree of excellence were produced. The 
works were situated in Jack Lane, close to the Leathley Lane 
Pottery. 
The first proprietors of whom there appears to be any record 
were two brothers named Green, in 1760, and it is said that their 
earliest productions were in black ware. It was then carried on 
by Humble, Green and Co. 
The Greens were a notable family in the annals of Yorkshire 
Potting, for we find members of it proprietors of, or partners in, 
several potteries in the south of the County, viz.: the Don Pottery, 
the Swinton Pottery, and the Kilnhurst Pottery. 
In 1783 the firm was Hartley, Greens and Co., and they had so 
far advanced in their work and were so well known by that year, 
as to justify them in issuing an elaborate book of “designs" of 
some of the articles they were producing, printed in English, 
